


Unbidden

by somebodys_dog



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Pre-d'Artagnan, allusions to sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 08:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8837026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebodys_dog/pseuds/somebodys_dog
Summary: He had expected the two men to collide the moment he first heard Porthos’ bark of a laugh and saw the flare in Aramis’ face he knew too well. One a temptation – a challenge – the other a gleeful and anticipatory acceptance. He had not expected Porthos’ kiss, however, nor had he expected it to turn so gentle so quickly





	

Athos had soft hands turned rough later in life, and a sad and secretive countenance about him. These things Aramis noticed, but to them he paid little mind. What snared his attention was that unwavering stare. It sliced through him and left a fire in its wake, like a musket ball without so much pain. In that moment, they were more boys than men, yet they had full lives trailing out behind them even as they faced the garrison together. Athos was freshly graduated to full commission, and Aramis hot on his heels in pursuit of the same. They were not so very far apart in age, but there was a collection of years in Athos that seemed to supersede any intensity in Aramis’ history of living. It pulled at him the way so many women did – the exoticism of mystery and melancholy, the sureness of stance and tightness of jaw. He wondered, as he had done in the radiance of courtly women, how much work that jaw would put into a kiss.  
  
He would find out soon enough, though it was stiff and tasted thickly of wine. So much of Athos was mired in the scent and palate of wine. In any other it might have been too much a hindrance, but for this man and his quiet atmosphere, it only served to stoke Aramis’ curiosity. For a while, he hounded after the man without probing too intently into his secrets. He did not want to pry them from Athos – he wanted, if he ever would, to discover them as if by accident, as if by sweet surprise.  
  
They were brothers more than lovers eventually, but neither was above chasing that lingering hunger in one another on late and uneventful nights. Or all the better, _very_ eventful nights, in which injuries were sustained before and after dark.  
  
Their intimacy had been rather dry the month of Porthos’ arrival. Athos was given to bouts of more serious melancholy, and he sought solitude at the bottom of a goblet more than he sought any other distraction. Aramis had come to terms with it, but it turned him churlish with un-sated appetites and boredom. Porthos filled a door frame like a long cold night, and he filled the eye like a dark promise. He was so soon from the ranks he still smelled of trenches and the sweat of military drills, but he smiled like a musketeer already – with all his teeth bared like a shark with the scent of blood and the thrill of a chase. His hands, Aramis noted, were rough from childhood, and stiff with absolute control. Athos did not miss that dark glimmer in his companion’s face, and though his spirits did not lift so much, he held out his hand to his equal and a welcome dalliance for the overanxious Aramis.  
  
Their affair began and continued as Athos knew it would: Loud with laughter and growling, thick with bruises and tooth-dents, strung out with just as much excitement as either man could handle. In truth, Athos was grateful for it; his interest in Aramis had not waned but his interest in _everything_ was so pale to begin with. Aramis was a colorful man with large if base ambitions. He could not abide such a ruinous and contemplative existence as Athos’ – though he could dally there on occasion, when Athos was not so low as to be absolute miserable company.  
  
He had expected the two men to collide the moment he first heard Porthos’ bark of a laugh and saw the flare in Aramis’ face he knew too well. One a temptation – a challenge – the other a gleeful and anticipatory acceptance. He had _not_ expected Porthos’ kiss, however, nor had he expected it to turn so gentle so quickly. It was the first time Porthos had been confronted with one of Athos more wayward moods – the kind that caused him to handle his life with much bravery but little care. It was also the first time he had seen fear in Porthos’ face, and the first time Porthos had laid hands on him. His collar in the hands of a warrior, his back against a creaky wooden door, a look of fire in Porthos’ eyes. And then a kiss – desperate and relieved, and then, as if touched by the underlying gloom that fueled such stunts in Athos, soft. He handled Athos, for a moment, as one handles some fragile heirloom – decorative but beloved, easily broken under a grip so strong as his. A dusty, drunken heart skipped once in a chest overworked with effort, and Athos felt himself, if only in some minor way, of some import. He had forgotten what it was like, save maybe in his brief entanglements with Aramis, to feel some value in himself. He had certainly not expected _that_.  
  
Aramis knew, of course. Instantly. He saw the vaguely haunted surprise written on his fellow’s face and beamed. “Yes,” he had said, full of new enchantment, “he does that.” He had walked away under Porthos’ heavy arm, and Athos, in the privacy of the night and his own company, smiled in earnest – a crooked thing to which he forgot the steps, but a dance which came to memory more easily and more often as time went on. That, he supposed, was the beginning of _The Three_ , as they were called about the garrison. Regret did not follow – not immediately and not after long months spent awaiting it. That perhaps surprised him most of all. But it relieved him, too.  
  
“A musketeer is entitled to all of his life that the king does not require,” Treville had told him over the splash of wine, in the dank of his office. Athos remained quiet for a time, stoic and careful as ever. The captain had simply smiled, and passed the silence with shared drink and understood secrets.  
  
“My life is with the musketeers,” he had replied at last, wholesale truth weighing strange on his tongue.  
  
“As ever,” Treville confirmed.  
  
“As ever.”  
  
“Live in what freedom you have, Athos. Allow yourself that.” Strange truth was matched with bald honesty, equally unsettling in its uniqueness. “Suffer if you think you must, but take with that the lack of social propriety it allows.”  
  
“Are you instructing me to abandon the conduct of a gentleman?”  
  
“Merely advising you to wallow in the best of company.”  
  
Again, briefly and unbidden, Athos smiled.  
  
  
“Did he give you a scolding?”  
  
Aramis languished like a satisfied cat full of canary, stretching one arm over the warm dent Athos left in the poor mattress, the other draped over the slow rise and fall of Porthos’ chest.  
  
“Not as such.” Athos ambled over creaky floorboards to the bottle kept by the bedside, examining an old and wine-stained glass before filling it.  
  
“Then what did he want?” Porthos’ rumble was sleepy and easy, and it brought that unfamiliar twitch of the lips to Athos’ face again.  
  
“Sanction,” he answered in a breath of spirits.  
  
“Mm?” Aramis was distracted, curling into the warmth of Porthos’ broad body and already snatching at the covers. How cold he always got, and how fussy because of it. “Are you to be married?”  
  
“Hopefully not,” Athos answered, a little more coldly than necessary. He slumped onto the edge of the bed again, curling his back over his knees and letting Aramis’ fingertips crawl affectionately up his spine. “You would make for such a chore of a wife.”  
  
Porthos laughed in his deep, belly-centered way, though he curled his arm to keep Aramis in the crook of it. Aramis, for his part, caught on more keenly, and cocked a brow at the slouched shoulders in front of him.  
  
“So he sanctioned our devilry? Our terrible scandal?”  
  
“You take too much joy in outrage,” Athos chided without real bite, hiding the emptiness of his words in a gulp of wine.  
  
“I take joy in everything. It balances your utter joylessness.”  
  
“That’s not true,” Porthos countered lazily, tracing bent knuckles back and forth over the bulb of Aramis’ shoulder. “He loves his wine.”  
  
“As do you.” Athos offered the half-empty cup to the pair on the bed, which Porthos took by the stem and downed without any offer to Aramis – who huffed dramatically in answer.  
  
“Does it perturb neither of you that Treville _knows_?” This time Aramis’ tone was slightly more serious, though neither of his bedmates seemed to follow suit.  
  
“’Course he knows,” Porthos answered. “Think the captain won’t know his own men?”  
  
“He seemed particularly _un_ perturbed by it all,” was Athos’ only reply.  
  
“What did he say, then?”  
  
“Probably said you’re a poor choice.”  
  
Porthos’ teasing was met with an elbow in his ribs, for which he easily tightened his grip and restrained Aramis against the threadbare sheets. Their laughter was quiet and familiar, and Athos absently reached back to rest a hand over Aramis’ chest, over which Porthos curled his own fingers. Aramis’ fussing faded into a pleased hum, his normally ever-quickened heartbeat steading to a more even pace beneath the weight of two palms.  
  
“Poor I may be,” Aramis practically purred, “but I am _obscenely_ handsome.”  
  
“A trophy in every respect,” Athos agreed under a smirk.  
  
“Need to be told you’re the prettiest at the ball? You _are_ a chore.”  
  
“That goes without saying, Porthos.” Aramis reached up to curl a finger in the meager length of Porthos’ beard, giving it a teasing tug which was answered with a firm grip about his wrist. “But it is nice to be _told_ once and again.”  
  
“You are the most insufferable mistress I’ve ever kept.”  
  
“I am the _only_ mistress you’ve ever kept.”  
  
“Should I take offense to that?” Athos finally turned, resting half a folded leg on the bed in order to look down at the playful pair, brows raised above a subtly mischievous expression. It lit a curiosity in Aramis’ eyes, and both his bedmates knew pursuit of that would soon follow – for the second time that night.  
  
“I wouldn’t call you a mistress,” Porthos answered.  
  
“To your face,” Aramis added.  
  
“Such respect.”  
  
“Merely mild admiration.”  
  
“Aramis,” Porthos scolded without any honesty.  
  
“ _Moderate_ , then.”  
  
“Merely that?” Athos turned away again, though left his hand in place beneath Porthos’. “Perhaps I should seek my entertainment elsewhere.” He leaned forward to reach for the nearly-empty bottle, but was pulled harshly back into the depression that matched his curled figure. It was a funny bed – normally any bed in the garrison would have been too small by half for all three of them, but two pushed together was just large enough. Aramis had been clever enough with a needle to unite two mattresses, if only because his loud complaints of discomfort when set into the middle was met with little sympathy from the others.  
  
“What _did_ Treville have to say, then?” Aramis pressed, even as h snaked an arm around Athos’ middle, tapping fingertips in a soft drumming against his sternum.  
  
“He told me to spend what freedom I have in good company.”  
  
“Should you be here with us, then?” But Porthos was grinning.  
  
“ _Clearly_ ,” Aramis answered, nosing into the crook of Athos’ neck. “By order of our captain! And you are so _good_ at following orders, dear Athos.”  
  
The dark quality of Porthos’ chuckle was touched with his brand of promise, and a shiver ran through Aramis so  thoroughly that it vibrated through Athos’ spine.  
  
As his wrists were raised above his head by two not-so-gentle sets of hands, Athos smiled – unbidden and familiar.


End file.
